


Mom

by RedKitsune



Category: Original Work
Genre: Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Original Fiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23577646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedKitsune/pseuds/RedKitsune
Summary: The title ‘Mom’ shifts and changes over one’s life. The word we use to refer to the woman who gave us life can change with age and our emotions. Yet for many of us, that woman is always there, standing firm regardless of if we want her until, one day, she isn’t.
Kudos: 1





	Mom

The lights where too bright, reflecting off the white of the walls and floors. There were voices in the hall but the people in the room couldn’t make out their words. The voices didn’t matter. All that mattered, all that would ever matter was in that too bright room. It smelled of sanitizer but just as the words were lost on them, as was the smell. 

The woman wearing bright blue scrubs smiled at the woman on the bed and the man leaned over the bed. Her job here was done. She wasn’t needed here anymore so she would leave the room, off into what felt like another world to do just what she had done here again and again. 

They didn’t notice her leave. They didn’t notice the bird that landed on the tree outside the window. They didn’t notice the fluffy white clouds in the sky. All there was in their world to notice was the puffy pink cheeks, little button nose and dark eyelashes framed by a sea of white. 

“I’m ‘mama’” the woman whispered as big, dark eyes blinked up at her. A tiny little mouth stretched open in a yawn, exposing the tiny little tongue that pushed out. 

~~~~~<3

The moon was high in the sky and stars shone down on the snow outside. It was peaceful night not matched by the fussy baby in her arms. The woman rocked and sang just the same while her husband worked the long night away. 

“Mama.” babbled the baby and the woman smiled. She knew it was too soon. She knew the baby was too young to use the word properly. She knew the little one was simply practicing her sounds. She knew all of it and yet her heart sang with the sound. 

~~~~~<3

“Mama!” She said, little legs taking her toward the woman standing at the stove. The rich smell of stew wafted in the air. She was hungry and maybe, just maybe if she was sweet enough she could get food now. 

The woman turned from the pot and swooped down, scooping up her little body. The woman shook her head, smile soft on her lips. Little fingers wove though the woman’s brown hair as little lips moshed a sloppy kiss to the woman’s face. The laugh that the action brought from the woman was perhaps almost as good as any treat she had managed to earn for herself. 

~~~~~<3

“Mom!” The voice rang out over the sea of small bodies all lined up on the asphalt. She waved her arm over her head as her lopsided pigtails danced around her head. They’d been even in the morning but that was a lifetime ago. 

There was so much she wanted to tell the woman making her way through the sea of adults. The backpack was puffy on her back but she held it with pride as she waited for her very first teacher to motion her over. 

When she saw the wave, just like they practiced, she skipped up to the teacher and curled her little fingers into a fist. Softly, she bumped her knuckles against the teacher’s much larger hand. The cracks on his worn knuckles scratched at her tiny hand but she didn’t mind. He was the teacher, the first of many. With a smile and a nod, he sent her on her way.

“Mom!” She cried as she lunged herself into the woman’s legs. Warm arms wrapped around her and pulled her up as if she weighed nothing. It didn’t matter that they were in the middle of the schoolyard, surrounded by strangers and new friends. The instant the woman’s arms wrapped around her tiny frame, she was home. 

~~~~~<3

“Momma?” The woman came running at the sound of her strangled voice. She’d tried to hold herself together for as long as she could. All she had wanted was to keep the pain inside until she made it through that door. 

The woman paused in the doorway, gazing down with the warmth of the sun at her tear stained face. That was all it took for her to crumble and spill the hurts of the day. Kids were not always nice to one another and hurt feelings were a part of growing up. 

The knowledge that this too would pass did nothing to cool the warmth from the woman as she wrapped up the small girl in her arms as if she were little still. The woman wouldn’t say it, not right now, but the she was still little. She grew with each passing blink of the eye but the woman would hold her in her arms for so long as she could. 

When tears slowed, the woman left the girl alone only to come back with her keys. There was nothing the woman could do to undo the hurts of the day. There was nothing the woman could do to work out childhood politics for her. But she did know that ice cream in the park while tossing small bits of carrots for the ducks could soothe any hurt, at least for the afternoon. 

~~~~~<3

“Mom!” She shouted as the woman stood stone still as the she hurdled vial words at her. Words meant to cut deep seemed to glance right off the woman. She tired to chip away her resolve but no words seemed to work. 

Finally when words ran out, she settled for sulking in her room. She wrote words of how unfair her life was on lined notebook pages. Line after line, she wrote of how much better it would be when she was free from this home. While she wrote, she was unaware of the woman crumbling in the living room.

The woman held her head in her hands, tears dropping down her wrists. This was a part of the process, she knew it but that did nothing to make the words hurt less. The girl who had once been a tiny baby, held within her arms was fighting to fly before she’d even learned how to spread her wings wide enough. 

Through the pain in her heart, the woman reminded herself that this storm too would pass. Seemingly a lifetime ago, before she had been the woman, she could remember what it had felt like to be trapped in that stage of between.

~~~~~<3

“Mother.” A exasperated sigh sounded across the dinner table. The girl and the woman were failing to see eye to eye, once again. Still, the girl was now a woman herself in so many ways. If she wanted to marry, she could. 

The woman had a hard time swallowing the choice just the same. It felt like the table between them could have just as easily been an ocean. The woman reached out, resting her reaching hand against the center of the table. A peace offering. 

Regardless of the girl’s choices, the woman would always be there. She would always be her baby, even if she no longer fit in her lap. The girl stood up, schooling her face and walked out of the room. The woman’s hand rested empty as a she listened to the front door close.

~~~~~<3

“Ma?” The voice came through the speaker from well over a thousand miles away. Technology had done wonders to keep them together even as she had grown up and moved away. 

The woman wasted no time getting on the first flight out. The laundry needed to be done and there were dishes in the sink but it could wait. Her daughter needed her to help show her how to pick up the shattered pieces of her heart. 

Though she was grown now, the girl had spent much of the night held in her mother’s arms. When the sun rose on them with the promise of a new day, together they worked as they packed her things. Heartbreaks were a dime a dozen, the woman would tell the girl though she wished she could take the pain herself. 

~~~~~<3

“Mama.” The woman cooed as her daughter sat on the bed in the too white room. Her hair was a mess and she looked tired but the woman knew the glow. She held her own little bundle in her arms, wrapped in pale blankets and a pale pink cap on her head. 

The woman didn’t feel old enough to be here, holding her daughter’s daughter. They’d been through life together, ups and downs. They’d watched the world change around them and now she was watching the girl’s life change in the same way hers had changed so long ago. 

The girl rolled her eyes but smiled down at the bundle. She would make a good mother, of that the woman was sure. Still, she would take time to find her feet.

~~~~~<3

“Mom?” The girl’s voice was thick with sleep and confusion. It was the middle of the light and her new husband’s eyes reflected the light of her cellphone. They shone full of the concern that she was sure was reflected in her own eyes. 

The woman tried to say she was fine, that it was nothing to worry about. She tried to say that it could wait till morning. 

The girl wouldn’t hear it. The man nodded to her as she slipped from the bed. The phone beeped as she flipped on the light. It’s harsh radiance banished the shadows of the night, revealing her large wet eyes and pale face. 

The woman had said it was nothing, that she would be fine. The woman said it could wait for morning but it didn’t sound like it would be fine. It didn’t sound like it could wait. 

She tripped over a laundry basket and crashed to the floor as she struggled to get dressed in her rush. The man would stay behind and watch the little one. Her arm was bleeding from where it scratched against the bed frame but she had hardly noticed. 

“Mama?” A small voice called out. She clutched the limp stuffed bunny in her arms. It was nearly as big as she was and well loved. 

The girl looked from her child, look of worry and fear on her small face to the man. He nodded at her. She needed to go, he would deal with the little one. The mother took a deep breath and steadied her mind for a few moments longer as she pulled the tiny body into her embrace. No one could say who needed the comfort more in that moment as tiny arms wrapped around her neck. 

The little one was passed on to the man and she rushed out the door and into the night. 

~~~~~<3

“Mama.” The word was choked. It hurt to say it but the woman who had once been a baby in this very hospital a lifetime ago felt like she had to say it. 

Trembling fingers wrapped around a too still hand. No one should ever be that still. Hands shouldn’t be that cold. It was wrong. It was all wrong. The girl pushed back the silver hair from the woman’s face. It felt like yesterday that the woman was standing in the kitchen of her childhood home, long brown hair tied back in a braid.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It was too soon. She needed her still. 

The woman collapsed forward over the still body and her chest and shoulders shuddered as she clung to the body on the bed. In the doorway, the man stood holding onto the girl as they watched on with sad eyes.

“Momma?” The girl asked, worried. She’d never seen her mother cry like this. Her tiny mind couldn’t process why her grandmother was so still on the bed, why she wasn’t waking up but she knew something was very wrong. 

“Momma?”

“Mama.”

-End-


End file.
